Well, see, that's the thing. It was originally planned for this game jam, submitting it to the other one was the afterthought. But you're absolutely right, it's not a metroidvania in its current state. I was way too ambitious with my goals, this was supposed to be a mostly-linear intro segment meant to set the scene for a larger open world, and also a place for the player to get acquainted with their tools. Unfortunately life caught up with me and I wasn't able to get much done for the "main game" section, and it didn't have anywhere near the same level of polish as the intro, so I decided to submit it as-is.
Yeah, I've had a few bugs reported with the anhks. Thanks for your addition! You should be able to read the tablets--every "ruin" is interactable, aside from like walls and things--but you can only read them once, so maybe you read them without noticing? I know when I playtested sometimes I would use a weapon right next to one of them and then keep pressing A through the text and would miss it.
I'm sorry about getting softlocked in the respawn room! I'm guessing it wouldn't let you transition to the next room? That's a known bug (more like a developer oversight, my bad) where it forgets to load the nearby scenes when you reload a checkpoint.